Step by Wicked Step - Themes and Settings

Themes:

Credit: Zati Hanani

Setting:

Time

• The novel is set in the modern 20th century.
• The story begins on a wet, rainy night with storms raging in the sky as the five main characters make their way ahead of their classmates to Old Harwick Hall for a week-long field trip.

Place

• The story takes place in Old Harwick Hall which is a spooky Victorian mansion built hundreds of years ago.
• It is described as 'absolutely private' and 'a towering mansion with dunce-hatted turret'. It has 'dark windows' and a 'huge oak and iron door'.
• The Tower Room in Old Harwick Hall - a room equipped with beds pointing to the centre. This is the room where the five characters Pixie, Claudia, Ralph, Robbo and Colin first gather when they arrive.
• A tiny room (' a tower off a tower') adjoining the Tower Room is where the characters discover a mysterious old diary belonging to Richard Clayton Harwick. The room is hidden by the frame of a bed but a pock-mark reveals its existence. The room is full of cobwebs and dust on the furniture. There are six vaulted windows, a lantern, candelabra, some books, cushions and a tiny carved wooden cow with three legs in the room.

Credit: englishOASIS